The ASUO denied the Oregon Student Public Research Group any funding during its contract budget process this year. The group’s leaders, however, are still convinced students want a funded OSPIRG chapter on campus, so they’re taking the question to the ballot. A vote in favor of funding OSPIRG does not require the ASUO to actually provide that funding with student fees, but the group’s leaders feel it will help them in their quest to secure the money next year.
The Emerald interviewed OSPIRG Student Board Chair Charles Denson about what the organization does and what has been happening with its budget this year.
ODE: What is the relationship between Oregon Student PIRG and Oregon State PIRG?
CD: Well, we’re closely related. We share an executive director. When we’re working on program or issue areas that overlap, we can sometimes share staff. We share an office in Portland. We both work on public interest issues. The major difference is OSPIRG state is run by a citizens’ board of directors and funded by citizens; OSPIRG students is run by a student board of directors and funded by students.
ODE: This year, OSPIRG was not granted funding by the ASUO. In your opinion, what was the reason behind that?
CD: I feel that the ACFC didn’t necessarily see the value of hiring, or they didn’t think the (incidental fee) should be used on the issues that we actually work on. I disagree with that. I feel like that is the purpose of the i-fee, to fulfill the University and the student government mission. We fulfill both of those things both as a service mission and working on campaigns and fighting for the collective interest.
ODE: What about the partisan dimension? The issues you work on are issues that are generally primarily supported by people with progressive values and the people who voted against funding OSPIRG for the coming year have conservative values. And I’ve heard from a lot of people who are involved within OSPIRG the idea that the group’s funding is more of a partisan issue, that some greater Republican interest wants to take OSPIRG’s funding away. Do you think that’s accurate?
CD: There are definitely some people in the ASUO and within the student body who don’t want us to be funded based on the issues that we work on. But we try to work on issues that aren’t strictly partisan. We try to work on issues that the majority of the public agrees upon. So, when we went to take on health care … we advocated for common-sense reforms that I think the majority of the public would agree upon. These are cost-saving measures that are predicted to save the public $12 million over the next 10 years, things like requiring insurance companies to use the same form, and electronic medical records. So we hope their decision isn’t based on the issues we work on, because actually legally they’re not supposed to allocate funds based on the viewpoint of a group.
ODE: What’s the future of OSPIRG now that the ACFC has denied funding? Will OSPIRG cease to exist? Will the way that it operates be compromised?
CD: Well, clearly to be an effective organization, we need to actually work on the issues; we actually need to hire professional staff and work on the issues. So not having funding would hamper our ability to do that. So fortunately, this year we were given a gift by the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group of $80,000 to continue to operate a chapter here on campus. I don’t think that should be the way that OSPIRG works, because part of the way that we work is that we’re actually funded by students, so we’re able to work on the issues that students want us to work on, and so students have control of the organization. I want to see a funded OSPIRG chapter that’s funded and run by students to empower students to actually take on some of the country’s biggest problems and actually make an impact on them.
ODE: It’s interesting when you say that because OSPIRG gets student funding, it’s accountable to students. Using that same argument, couldn’t you say that OSPIRG’s executive director, because most of his funding comes from the state OSPIRG, primarily isn’t accountable to students?
CD: No. Because he still is funded — typically, when we’d be a funded chapter — he would still be funded and the work that he’s doing for us, he’s actually being funded by students. So it’s not only he’s accountable to students but it’s actually they have control. And the reason that we’re able to be the board of directors is because we’re funded by students and we’re funded by the chapters. It’s not every nonprofit organization that you would get where you can have 19- and 20-year-olds who are really just passionate about these issues to get on a board of directors, and it’s a really empowering experience for all the students who are actually able to do that because they’re funded by students.
ODE: But what if the agendas of Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group and Oregon State Public Interest Research Group should come into conflict? Wouldn’t that make the practice of having an executive director and a professional staff paid by both somewhat dubious?
CD: The basis of the question is a little weird because we’re both public interest advocacy groups, so it’s not like we’re actually working — it’s not like they’re going to have an interest that’s opposed to the student interest. But if there was such an issue that came up, that would be an issue that we’d have to deal with.
ODE: But surely you can’t say that there would never be a situation where the interests would come into conflict. Does OSPIRG have a plan for what should happen if the interests of Oregon’s students and the interests of the larger population come in conflict?
CD: Well, as a board, we have complete control over what we would do, so we actually direct the executive director in what we want him to do and how we want him to fulfill our goals. We have control over the staff if we don’t like the way things are going.
ODE: So if the student OSPIRG came to a point where it had to come into conflict with the state OSPIRG, would it be possible for it to operate in conflict with it, if it had to divorce itself from the state OSPIRG’s employees?
CD: Again I just feel like this is a strange question in that there’s not a lot of examples or any that I know of where they’re going to be working on an issue that’s in conflict with student interests. They’re working on behalf of the public interest and the students are part of the public, and OSPIRG (students) also works on behalf of the public, so inherently we’re going to have similar interests and work on similar issues. And that’s actually why we formed and decided to run the organization like this, to actually be more effective as a cost-saving measure, so that we’re able to work on more issues because we have more people pooling and buying into paying the professional staff to actually work on these issues and solve these problems.
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